Southwest Airlines is probably the only carrier in the world with a executive in the position of “manager of emerging media”.
Yet Southwest isn’t like many other airlines.
Paula Berg is the holder of this rather curious title but is credited with throwing Southwest into the (not always) open arms of consumers around the social parts of the web.
For example, Southwest on Twitter has an astonishing 800,000-odd followers. Whether it is the shining light for other airlines or suppliers to follow is another matter entirely.
In a short interview on YouTube from SimpliFlying, Berg explains her role within Southwest and its wider social marketing strategy.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw2FqzjM104
But is Southwest a beacon of Web 2.0-ness that others should admire? Some might argue that most of the initiatives it has done in social media are easy to implement and are successful by virtue of their wider brand style and first-mover advantage.
NB: Perhaps the secret sauce for Berg is also giving as many interviews as possible – see further clips here, here, here and here.
NB: The pun in the title refers to a rather funny yet cutting video doing the rounds. Not for those with delicate ears.
It looks like Southwest is doing it right and I actually like her job title. More media will indeed emerge and not all will probably be social media as we call it today.
A key element for any social – or emerging – media strategy is authenticity. Southwest has a corporate culture that lends itself to the deployment of tools like Twitter to engage with their customers. It doesn’t come across as phony and the number of followers they have is testament to that. JetBlue is in a similar situation.
Other major carriers don’t seem to be able to pull this off as they are not believable and just trying harder is not the solution for success. You got the mojo or you don’t!
Kudos to Southwest…again. For social media, four essentials are required: clear objectives/goals; strategy to support those goals; execution that is lock-step with strategy and, finally, metrics and measurements to assess success. This past week, I asked a room of 250 tourist offices and suppliers at The U.S. Travel Association’s Marketing Outlook Forum in Little Rock, how many of their travel organizations were involved in some form of social media. Almost 100% of the hands were raised. When I asked them to keep their hands held high if they could articulate the goals, strategy or social media policy of their organization, all hands snapped down. Therein lies the problem.
Joe: As I wrote today,http://bit.ly/JgwVY Royal Caribbean is an example of a company which is being very aggressive these days in social media, to its credit.
But, so far, for the most part, the cruise line doesn’t have the mojo, as you put it. The authenticity and humanity has gone missing from most of its social media voices.